


child's play

by novoaa1



Series: find you again [2]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Blood, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Crying, Cryofreeze (Marvel), Family Dinner, Flashbacks, Gen, Hugs, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Sex, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Memory Alteration, Memory Suppressing Machine | The Chair (Marvel), Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, PLEASE READ TAGS, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Natasha Romanov, Reader-Insert, Red Room (Marvel), Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Sunrises, Team Bonding, Team Dynamics, Telepathic Wanda Maximoff, Tony Stark Does What He Wants, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, all of them - Freeform, am too tired to check them now, brief mention of racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 04:34:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28647627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novoaa1/pseuds/novoaa1
Summary: You’ve agreed to stay with Natalia (for now). You don’t yet trust her, but you figure it’s a start.Soldat remains a mystery to you, and, when Steve Rogers enters into the equation, everything just seems to go from bad to worse.In the meantime, you share a couple moments with Natalia, talk to a pretty girl, and think a little about what it truly means to be a kid.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Reader, James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov (Marvel) & Reader, Tony Stark & Reader, Wanda Maximoff & Reader, Wanda Maximoff/Reader
Series: find you again [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2099409
Comments: 24
Kudos: 149





	child's play

**Author's Note:**

> please please PLEASE read the warning, this one is a little more brutal than the last one... memories, flashbacks, etc. 
> 
> i don't think it's anything too graphic or crazy, but then again, it's all subjective, right?
> 
> wasn't gonna make a part 2 of this, but enough people seemed to vibe with it that i threw this together.. hope you like!

Natalia shows you to an empty room, says it’s where you’ll be sleeping tonight. Then she promptly exits to take a phone call, leaving you alone in your new living space— _temporarily_. 

It’s nice, you suppose. 

An empty desk in the corner, blanketed by a thin layer of dust; a wooden chair to match.

A stout dresser pushed up against the wall—similarly coated with dust. 

An adjoining bathroom with not one, but two full-scale mirrors—one spanning the entire wall above the sink, and another secured on the inside of the door. 

Beside the bathroom, a spacious walk-in closet, empty save for a couple tens of hangars dangling from the rods. 

A massive wooden bedframe for an incredibly large bed—at least twice as big as the threadbare twin-size mattress you’ve been sleeping on since before you can remember, and three times as soft. 

The pillows are fluffy like marshmallows. The grey sheets and pillow cases feel as if they’ve been hand-threaded for royalty. And really, the matching poofy duvet-comforter-thing is just the big fat cushy icing on the velvety American cake. 

Even sitting on the edge of the bed feels like sinking into a cloud. 

It’s plush, luxurious… _comfortable_. 

You kind of hate it on principle. 

Not to mention, there’s a decently-sized window built into the wall just opposite the bed—2m x 1.5m (10’ x 5’), if you had to hazard a guess. A quick tap to the pane tells you it’s bulletproof polycarbonate, so at least that’s something. 

Doesn’t change the fact that the sightline it provides into the room itself is… substantial, to say the very least. 

You remember when Natalia began staying intermittently at the newly-christened Avengers Tower shortly after the alien invasion of New York. It was a fucking headache to surveil, even when you had eyes on her. Too much exposure, not nearly enough on-site security, a hundred and one weak spots in Stark’s beloved J.A.R.V.I.S.’ programming. 

The year would’ve been… 2012, you think? The timeline of it all is so… scrambled in your brain. 

You make a note to check that later… maybe record what you can remember, then supplement it with documented events from the news. A sort of… written chronology. 

Perhaps it won’t all feel so jumbled if you can get it on paper. 

Either way, it stressed you out, Natalia staying at the Tower. It still does.

You suppose it makes you feel marginally better to know she’s on the other side of the wall. _Marginally_.

On the exterior, you could clock potential threats from an elevated perch, have a chance to neutralize them before Natalia or her Avenger compatriots ever knew they’d existed. 

On the interior, you’re a sitting duck. Then again, should something happen, you’re in a better location to quickly secure her and begin plotting a viable escape route. 

It’s a trade-off—proximity to Natalia for the loss of an ideal vantage point on the outside. 

Then again, if the events of Leipzig and Siberia (and Sokovia) are any indication, the single greatest threat to the world-renowned Avengers has proven to be none other than the Avengers themselves. 

… In which case, the heart of Avengers Tower is exactly where you’ll want to be. 

Yes, this is a trade-off you can live with. For now. 

With another glance between the too-large window and marshmallow bed, you make the executive decision to gather some intel. 

“Hey, F.R.I.D.A.Y.?” you ask tentatively. It feels strange, speaking out into an empty room and expecting it— _her_ —to answer. 

“Yes, Miss Y/L/N?” Her response is quick, her intonation calm like a freshwater creek. 

It’s only years of training that keep you from jolting at her offhanded use of your surname. 

“Is the window in this room two-sided?” It must be, you think. Still, it’ll put your mind at ease to know for sure. 

“I presume you mean two-sided in the sense that the exterior is reflective, while the interior is transparent.”

“Yes.”

“Then, yes, Miss Y/L/N. It is.”

Ah. Sightline eliminated. 

“Okay. Thank you, F.R.I.D.A.Y.” You pause, glancing up at the ceiling. “And… you can just call me Y/N.”

“Is that what you’d prefer?”

The objectively rather simple query knocks you back on your heels. _What I’d… ‘prefer.’_

Jesus. It’s been a long damn time since someone asked you—not your many faces, not your undercover personas, but _you_ —what you ‘preferred.’

It takes you a moment or two to realize that F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s still waiting patiently for your reply. 

“Yes,” you answer, silently scolding yourself for the momentary lapse. “If that’s alright with you.”

“Of course, Y/N,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. defers graciously. 

And with that, she’s gone. 

You do another quick walk around, surveying the space, taking in its dimensions. 

Finally, you sit yourself cross-legged against the wall just underneath the large, rectangular window. There, you rest for the moment—simply taking it all in. 

It’s early afternoon, still. Golden sunlight strains from behind storm-grey clouds in gloomy skies overhead. The streets of New York City are overcrowded, bustling with activity. Sirens wail from a distance; the stifled sounds of overlapping honks and shouts from street level filter up through the walls—a constant melody in The City That Never Sleeps. 

One point of entry. Two, if you count the window. 

One exit. (Though, worse comes to worst, you can always make one of your own. You’re creative that way.)

Old S.H.I.E.L.D.-issue long-sleeve shirt and sweatpants (sans the drawstring). Boxer briefs instead of panties—an interesting choice, considering you still don’t know who dressed you. You don’t really mind it, though. 

No bra, hair pulled back into a sloppy bun. 

No shoes. No weapons. And, as you still have Natalia firmly down in the ‘Undecided’ column, no allies. 

You’ve certainly faced worse.

You fold your hands in your lap, let your eyes flutter shut. You filter out the sounds of car horns and disgruntled civilians and mayhem from down below until all you can hear is your breathing alongside the constant hum of the air conditioning. 

If you strain yourself hard enough, you can just make out the quiet murmur of Natalia speaking on the phone from the other room. You’re sure that if you really wanted to, you could listen in on the conversation. 

You kind of do. 

And yet, it would be an encroachment—an invasion of her privacy, that which she no doubt treasures greatly, even now, in an age where true privacy is more scarce than ever. _Especially_ now. 

You will not be one to take what precious little of it remains from her. 

So, instead, you sit, you listen, and you wait. 

— —

“I don’t want to fight you,” you tell Natalia, leveling her with an admonishing look.

“Why?” Natalia asks. “Scared I’ll kick your ass?”

You do another sweep of the training space around you. It’s empty save for floor-to-ceiling mirrors on three sides, an expensive-looking assortment of Tanto blades mounted on the nearest wall, and a metal bench sitting near the door-less entry way. 

You huff out a sigh, willing to let some of your frustration show if it’ll finally get her to stop treating all of this as one big joke. “You can’t be serious with all of this.”

“You’ll have to be a little more specific.”

_Where to start_... The Tanto blades, the offer to spar, the lack of heavily-armed security waiting to drop you on your ass the moment you step out of line. “Is this a test?”

Natalia’s gaze softens, if only slightly. “No.”

“Would you tell me if it were?”

“Yes.”

You eye her for a long moment. “I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“I still don’t want to do this.”

Natalia appraises you for a minute… then two. It takes everything within you not to shrink away under her inspection. “Why not?”

Yeah, you’re definitely not answering that question.

You take a breath to gather yourself, silently willing a sense of calm upon your frayed nerves. 

Then, you settle into a fighting stance—feet a shoulder’s width apart, loosely-curled fists at the ready. 

You make sure you’re looking her dead in the eye when you say, “Alright, Babushka. Hit me with your best shot.”

There’s a hint of something like barely restrained glee sparking in Natalia’s eyes before she’s lunging for you in a blur of motion, not an ounce of hesitation in her graceful movements. 

You can’t help the wolfish grin spreading across your face as you duck down at the last second, causing her heavy-handed swing to miss by a couple centimeters where it otherwise would’ve knocked you into next week.

_Game on_.

— —

It’s steady going, for about the first 10 minutes. 

You manage to get in a couple good hits—maybe one for every two or three Natalia lands on you. 

She’s _fast_. Not as quick as you, but what she lacks in speed, she makes up for ten times over in endurance and poise. She’s a prima ballerina, through and through, even when she spars. _Especially_ then. 

She makes the fight feel less like a fight, and more like a dance. Her, the refined, porcelain-faced lead; you, her… flat-footed, bush-league partner. 

Though, truth be told, it’s always been that way. You may well be the program’s biggest success since Natalia, but dancing has never been your strong suit.

Regardless, you find yourself falling into a familiar two-step—block, kick, duck. Twist out of the hold, dodge another jab.

The banter comes steady between hits, like you’re… friends, or something. Well, not friends. Acquaintances? 

Whatever. Point is, you’re not actively trying to kill her, and she’s not actively trying to kill you. In your book, that’s tantamount to some degree of unity. 

You duck a high kick, land a quick jab beneath Natalia’s rib cage. Hop up just in time to clear the sweep kick hurtling straight for your ankles.

You’ve only just settled back on your feet when Natalia surges up from her crouched stance to throw a vicious uppercut. You lurch back onto your heels to avoid getting hit, sending all your balance right off the fucking deep end. 

“ _Come now, little one_ ,” she purrs in Russian, advancing forth to match you step for step even as you stagger back. “ _You can only evade me for so long_.”

It’s meant to be a tease, a quip, nothing more; but upon hearing it, you freeze. Every muscle tenses up, your joints lock, and all you can see is red, red, red. 

Red like Natalia’s hair. Red like Madame B’s painted lips. Red like blood. 

Blood smeared between your thighs, blood staining the snow, blood dribbling down your chin.

A never-ending torrent of red, red, _red_.

_Come now, little one_ , a younger Natalia says, advancing on you like a predator would its prey. _You can only evade me for so long._

You stumble back, teeth gritted as shards of broken glass slice your bare feet. Your vision blurs, your fingers feel cold, and the gash in your side… warm and wet. An endless flow of blood so very, very red. 

A bone-cracking blow against your jaw whips your head to one side, blood and saliva spurting from your bleeding lips. You stagger away, balance compromised… only to have your back hit a wall of cold, hard brick.

_Fight back_ , she orders you, her voice so very hard and cold even as blood runs wet and warm between your trembling fingers, dousing you in your own inadequacy. You’re so weak, so fucking weak—sliding down the wall, jagged brick tearing every scabbed-over lash on your back open anew. _Let’s see the little kitten use her claws_.

Her face is the last thing you see before it all goes black.

Black…

_‘Black Widow lives. Find her.’_ You carve that phrase into the wood of a loose floorboard beneath your bunk with a shiv you stole from an older girl named Svetlana. 

The letters are messy, and the tips of your fingers bleed from pulling out splinters, but this is important. 

They’re sending you to the chair this afternoon. You don’t know why, and they won’t tell you.

All you know is, the chair hurts. The chair… _takes_ things. It takes your memories, rips them apart and mixes them up until none of it feels real anymore. 

After the chair, you’re a clean slate. An empty vessel. A loaded weapon ready to be aimed and fired. 

You go through the motions of everyday life in a daze, like you’re sleep-walking. Nothing feels real; nothing feels like it matters. 

A mark shoves himself inside you with zero foreplay, growls a slew of racially derogatory and outright demeaning things into your mouth as he fucks you. You feel nothing. 

You shoot a target at point-blank range, spatter his brains across the walls, taste the coppery tang of his blood on your tongue. 

Zilch. It’s as if you’re not even there. 

Sometimes, things come back. They’re always incomplete—bits and pieces. A name you should know but don’t; a face that looks familiar but isn’t; a sense of crushing grief a mile wide, but you don’t know for the life of you who it’s for. 

There’s only one part that always, always, _always_ comes back: Natalia. 

Hell, even when your own _name_ doesn’t come back, she always does. 

The dimple in her cheek, the startling green of her eyes, the coppery red of her hair. 

It’s not until you remember Natalia that you are a person again… that you are _you_ again. 

So, you carve the words into a loose floorboard— _Black Widow lives. Find her._ Crawl down under your bed, ease it back into place. 

When you return, it’ll be there. It’ll remind you that you’re not crazy for missing a ghost. 

No matter how long it takes, no matter how many times they wipe you… it’ll be there. You’ll remember. You _have_ to. 

A series of chimes echo throughout the dusty dormitory—one, two. Then, silence. 

2:00pm. 

You’ve got an appointment with the chair in exactly 15 minutes. 

You sit yourself down on the edge of your bed, hear the mattress squeak. 

One breath, then two. In, out. In, out. 

It’s grey outside. Cloudy skies, thick snow blanketing the grounds. All the gloom and doom so characteristic of this hellish place where little girls come to die. 

And then, as you watch, a flash of red amidst the grey. More saturated than Natalia’s hair, more luminescent than blood. A mirage that bathes the untouched snow beneath it in flares of brilliant crimson. 

You think you recognize it. 

A strange thought. 

It’s red, red… so very, very red…

You awake to screaming. 

No chimes. No snow. 

Where is the sky? 

Light assaults your senses. It stings, makes your eyelids flutter. 

So bright. So bright. 

LEDs? Probably. 

You blink. _What’s an LED?_

Your vision sharpens. Your eyes still burn, but pain will be compartmentalized. You will not break. You are marble. 

Two faces loom over you—feminine. Pretty. 

Red. So much red. 

Blood?

No… hair. Eyes. Jacket. 

Red, red, so much red. 

The older one is shushing you, her brow creased with worry. 

Are you the one screaming?

The younger one looks panicked… fearful. 

Doesn’t she know that to show fear is to admit defeat? She cannot surrender. She mustn’t. She’ll die. 

Will you be the one to kill her?

Her eyes are red. They glow like lanterns. Why are they red?

Natalia had red hair. No, not ‘had.’ _Has_.

_Black Widow lives. Find her._

Whose words are those?

Your fingertips throb. Splinters under your nails.

Red hair tickles your chin. 

Red hair… 

Natalia had red hair. 

She was a dancer, a prima ballerina. There were 28 of them in the Bolshoi… and then there was one. 

Dancing, dancing, dancing. Always dancing. 

Blood leaking through the toes of her slippers. 

Blood in your mouth, wet and warm. 

Blood on her face as Natalia looks down at you and tells you that she’s sorry, begs you not to die. 

A shudder runs through your body. You twitch and grasp your side. 

Dry. No wound. No blood. 

You glance down at your hands. 

Dry. No wound. No blood. 

That doesn’t make sense. 

This doesn’t make sense. 

You were bleeding. Where’s the blood?

Where’s the red?

“Y/N!”

Deafening white noise explodes in your ears. Someone’s calling out a name. You think it might belong to you.

Light overhead. 

So bright. So bright. 

LEDs? Probably. 

Your throat aches.

Someone was screaming… Was it you?

“Y/N?” That voice… You know that voice. 

Or do you?

A familiar face looms in your periphery. 

Green eyes. Red hair. 

“ _That’s it, little one, just breathe_.” 

Natalia used to call you ‘little one.’

Another face beside hers. Wide eyes that glow… red. So red. Tears streaming down her pretty face—weakness. She can’t show weakness. Doesn’t she know that?

“ _You’re crying_.” Your voice sounds distant, tinny to your own ears. 

The crying girl just frowns. Does she not understand you?

“She said, ‘You’re crying,’” the other one translates. Red hair. Green eyes. Natalia?

“Oh,” the younger one sniffles, hands trembling as she wipes hastily at her tear-stained cheeks. She wears silver rings, at least one on each finger. Why do they look familiar? “Sorry.”

Why is she apologizing?

“ _Stop apologizing_ ,” you tell her, your words gravelly and rough. The inside of your throat feels as if it’s been scraped raw. Every word you speak is agonizing, but she needs to hear this. “ _Madame will hear you_.”

The younger one sniffles, looks to the older one… to Natalia. “What did she say?”

Her English is stilted, heavily accented… Slavic. Sokovia, perhaps?

Sokovia… 

Fuck. Your head is fucking _killing_ you.

Natalia shakes her head, a grim expression on her face. “She thinks she’s still in Russia,” she murmurs, so quiet you have to strain to hear her. 

Sokovia. Von Strucker. HYDRA.

Two enhanced targets—a brother and a sister. Eliminate them, quickly and quietly. Make it look like an accident. 

You see them… kids. 

The girl is red. The boy is blue. 

Your finger on the trigger, bleached-blonde hair in the crosshairs.

They’re _kids_. 

Suddenly, the scene changes, and the girl looms over you. Red flickers in her eyes. Why is she here?

Doesn’t she know you’ve been sent to kill her?

“ _You need to go. Now_ ,” you tell her. “ _I have orders_.”

The girl blinks, shaking her head like she doesn’t understand. She’s still crying. “What?”

Suddenly, Natalia is there. “ _Y/N, I need you to listen to me. You’re—_ ”

“ _Natalia, don’t kill them—the twins. Please. They’re kids_ ,” you plead with her. Madame must have sensed your weakness, sent the Widow to finish the job. “ _Take me back to the chair. Don’t make me kill them_.”

Natalia frowns, looking deeply troubled, but eventually nods. “ _I won’t harm them, Y/N_.”

You barely hear her. 

“ _You can hate me, Natalia. I can take it. But, please… Let them live_.”

“ _I will, little one_.” Her voice sounds rougher than usual. You wonder if she’s coming down with a cold. A foolish thought. She was born in the cold. “ _I’ll protect them_.”

“ _Okay… Okay_ …”

A white-hot flare of agony as something bursts in your brain. Bits and pieces, a torrent of memory… 

Darkness.

Handcuffs.

Gas.

New York City. 

Natalia.

Tony Stark. 

Soldat. 

Wanda?

You look up. LEDs burn your retinas. Two faces loom over you. The stench of antiseptic tickles your nostrils. 

Where are you?

Avengers Tower. 

Natalia didn’t lie about that. Why didn’t she?

You remember… A training room. Tanto blades. 

_“Alright, Babushka. Hit me with your best shot.”_

Did you say that?

You sit bolt upright, adrenaline thrumming through your veins. 

Blood fills your mouth, wet and warm, a coppery taste that never leaves your tongue. 

You jump down onto the floor, run over to the sink. Someone says your name, but you ignore them. 

Wait. How do you know that that’s _your_ name?

Your legs feel wobbly. You grip the edges of the countertop for balance, spitting blood and saliva into the silvery basin, hacking it up noisily like a cat with a hairball. 

When it’s gone, you feel empty. Your mouth still tastes like copper. 

You turn on the faucet, rinse your mouth out until the taste of bad pennies goes away. Once, twice, three times. 

You hear voices behind you. One of them is familiar, but the other… Hm. 

Your temples throb. Fuck, your head is killing you. 

You slowly turn around, gauge your surroundings. Assess, evaluate… then act. 

Two figures. They both fall silent when your gaze lands upon them. 

Natalia Alianovna Romanova. Codename: Black Widow. 

Designation: Unclear. Threat Assessment: Deadly.

Wanda Maximoff. Codename: Scarlet Witch.

Designation: Unclear. Threat Assessment: Deadly.

“Y/N?” Natalia asks tentatively. 

English. She’s using English. 

That’s fine. Your English has always been quite good. 

You watch her carefully. There’s something you’re missing here. Something big. “You’re… ”

“Natalia. I trained you, once.”

A scene flashes in your mind’s eye—a pale-faced dancer. Fiery-red hair pulled into a perfect bun; not a single strand out of place. Blood soaking the tips of her slippers, leaving wet red marks everywhere she steps on an empty stage. 

Why is it empty? It shouldn’t be empty. 

Should it?

There were 28 dancers in the Bolshoi… 

And then there was one. 

“You… You were a dancer.”

A hint of a smile pulls at her lips, though it’s more than a little bitter. “Yes, I was.”

“Have I just been to the chair?”

She shakes her head. “No. We were training.”

A nebulous memory begins to take shape in your broken mind. “Blades on the wall… Mirrors.”

Natalia’s gaze flares with relief. “Yes. I think you had a flashback. Something I said…”

A stab of pain in your chest. You don’t want to think about that. 

You turn to the other one—Wanda. “Your rings… the black stone. Is it onyx?”

Wanda blinks—once, twice, as if taken aback. Her cheeks are stained with mascara and tears. “I—Yes,” she answers, glancing down at her hands, then holding them out to you as if offering them up for inspection. 

A strange endeavor. 

You examine them for a moment or two, if only to put her mind at ease. Her nails are painted black, chipped in various places. It suits her. 

“In Iskitim… I saw a flicker of red light over the snow,” you say slowly, meeting her gaze. “Did you… Were you… ?” You trail off. 

You don’t know quite what you’re trying to ask. Maybe whether or not she was _there_ somehow, even as you feel incredibly stupid for thinking it. 

“That was me,” Wanda confirms with a shaky exhale. “I was there… in your head.” 

Oh. Okay. Maybe not so stupid after all. 

“Never again,” you tell her firmly. At her furrowed brow, you add, “I don’t want you going back there. Ever.”

“You were lost in memories.” Wanda’s voice sounds so forlorn, and… _sad_. “I was trying to bring you out.”

“I don’t care,” you inform her, and perhaps it’s crude, but it’s true. “You will never feel that anguish.” You don’t know why you feel so strongly about it, but you do. “You will not see it in your dreams, in your nightmares… I do not want that for you.”

Wanda falls quiet for a long moment… then two. 

“You saved me once,” she says eventually. “My brother, too. If—and when—I can, I’m going to help you. I don’t care if it hurts.”

“Stubborn,” you mutter. 

You also want to add that you don’t think deciding not to assassinate two kids you were assigned to assassinate equates to ‘saving,’ but you bite your tongue. You’re in no mood for a petty dispute.

Natalia arches a brow. “Remind you of anyone we know?”

You don’t roll your eyes, but it’s a close thing. Instead, you shut your eyes and exhale slowly, grounding yourself for what you’re about to ask next. “Did I hurt anyone?”

“No,” Natalia answers simply. 

You peek at her through one eye, then shut it again. “Would you tell me if I did?”

“Yes.” No hesitation in her response. 

You let both eyes flutter open, inspect the two of them carefully when you ask, “What did I say?”

To Natalia’s credit, she does well to keep a mask of composure intact. The same cannot be said for Wanda, however, whose nervous sidelong glances give her away in zero seconds flat. 

She would be horrid at poker.

“Tell me.” 

“You said… ‘Black Widow lives. Find her,’” Wanda recites. There’s a haunted look in her eye that’s telling you it was much, much more than that. 

All of a sudden, realization dawns upon you. “You saw it… didn’t you?”

Wanda hesitates, then nods. “Yes.”

“What did you see?” you ask. 

“A room… like a dormitory. Many beds. You were… sitting on one of them, carving words into a piece of wood.”

“A loose floorboard from under my bed,” you supply numbly, nodding for her to continue.

“A clock rang twice… 2:00pm. You had… an appointment with the… ” She hesitates, worrying her lower lip between her teeth. It looks swollen and irritated, like she’s been biting it quite a lot recently. “The _chair_. You carved it because it was… the only thing that would come back after.”

You manage another nod even as nausea churns low in your gut. “And that’s all you saw?”

“There was so much snow outside… And your feet—you had no shoes.” She winces. “Your toes were bruised and bleeding.”

“Dancing takes its toll,” you explain with a shrug even as Wanda begins to look a little queasy. “Natalia can attest to that.”

Wanda nods, though she still looks troubled. And nauseated. Not that you blame her.

You flick your gaze to Natalia. Her expression is like stone—stiff, unmoving. 

There’s more. 

(Isn’t there always?)

“What else did I say?”

“You—”

Natalia stops Wanda with a gentle touch, her eyes never leaving yours. “You told Wanda to stop apologizing,” she recounts, sounding as though she’s taking great care to keep her tone even. “You didn’t want Madame to hear her.”

Bile rises in your throat at the mere thought of Wanda at Madame’s mercy. 

“You told Wanda she had to go. That… you had orders.” Natalia swallows thickly, a thin sheen of moisture in her eyes. “You begged me not to kill them—the twins. Told me I could take you back to the chair, just so long as I didn’t make you kill them.”

Your eyes burn. Your jaw aches from clenching it so hard. “What else?”

“You said… that it was fine if I hated you. That you could take it.” Natalia’s hands are clenched into tight fists at her sides. If you look closely enough, you can see them tremble. “Then, you begged me once more to spare the twins’ lives. I said I would.”

_Fuck_. You blow out a long breath. “Anything else?”

Natasha shakes her head slowly, eyeing you carefully all the while. “No.”

You don’t know why, but you believe her. You nod. 

Quiet falls on the three of you, then. It’s a little tense, but not unbearable, by any means. In many ways, you actually sort of welcome it. 

You don’t want to think about everything you just saw, everything you just heard… everything you just _said_. You don’t want to talk about it, either. 

Instead, you busy yourself with taking stock of the situation. 

Same clothes: boxer shorts, long-sleeve shirt, sweatpants. No bra. 

Hair pulled back. No cuffs. 

Bright lights overhead, no mirrors… Your surroundings have changed. 

You’re in some kind of… medical room. There’s a bed covered in paper—the kind you’d see on a medical exam bed. It has creases in it where you once laid. 

The walls are clear—bulletproof polycarbonate, you hope, but perhaps even Tony Stark has not yet reached that level of paranoia. After all, what’s the point of bulletproofing individual cubicles inside a bulletproof building? 

Around you, outside the glass dividers… a lab. Digital readings floating in air, a Holotable, an Iron Man suit. It’s an old one, you can tell—the Mark V. 

Bulky, loud. No gold, just red and silver. Collapsible into a suitcase, if you’re remembering correctly. 

Never let it be said that you don’t do your due diligence. 

The man himself is currently hunched over blueprint designs on a workbench near the Holotable, muttering incessantly to himself. His dark hair sticks up in strange places, and there are more than a couple questionable splotches staining his wife-beater. 

As if sensing your gaze, he quiets and looks up; catches your eye. 

“Hey, Little Red!” he calls, flashes you a grin so wide it looks painful. He looks like hell. “Tash said you were dying. Glad you’re not.” Natalia snorts, and Wanda poorly stifles a giggle. “I’m ordering food soon. Personally, I’m craving Chinese takeout. Also, I want a fortune cookie. You like Panda Express?”

You eye him for a moment, then turn back to Natalia. “He’ll grow on me, you say?”

Natalia shrugs, amusement sparkling in her eyes. “Give it time.”

— —

Stark has F.R.I.D.A.Y. order a truly insane amount of food from Panda Express, calls it a ‘family dinner.’

You wonder if that means the other Avenger ‘Super Friends’ will be taking part, as well. 

You don’t know if the possibility makes you nauseous or just wary. Perhaps both. 

Natalia ducks out after Stark places the order, citing a promise she’d made to spar with James. Says she’ll be back within the half-hour, then leaves—but not before winking at you and slanting a meaningful glance towards an oblivious Wanda. 

You don’t give her the middle finger, though you’re sorely tempted.

… Which leaves you alone with a raving Tony Stark still hunched over some flashy new Stark Industries design, and a pretty-faced witch with eyes like the ocean and a smile that makes your heart beat a little faster in your chest.

_Love is for children_ , a voice in your head reminds you. It sounds a lot like Madame’s. 

“Alright, ladies, you’re free to hang out here if you’d like,” Stark tells the two of you without looking up from his designs. “Food’ll be here in 20.”

Wanda nods towards a couch on the other side of the room, then shoots you a questioning look. “Would you like to sit?”

You nod. “Sure.”

— —

Wanda brings her knees up, folds them neatly in front of her. All the while, her eyes never leave you.

And you? You make it a point to sit perfectly still under her inspection, no matter how it makes you want to scream. 

Everything hurts. Your head, your legs, your heart. 

It’s been but less than a day since you were in Iskitim. Your wrist aches where you cuffed yourself to the bed frame, your stomach throbs from the powerful gut punch Ilya threw in training, and your head… is a fucking mess, quite frankly. 

Your little _episode_ from earlier certainly didn’t help with that. 

You feel… off-kilter. Raw. Every nerve ending exposed for all to see, like you just came from a particularly grueling session with the chair.

“Can I ask you something?” someone asks, and—no, not someone. _Wanda_. The witch. Silver rings. Onyx. 

You turn to her, willing the chaos in your thoughts to settle. “Sure.”

She hesitates for a moment, then, and you swear you see the faintest hint of red flare in her eyes. “You’re… in pain.” 

Whatever she was going to ask, that definitely wasn’t it. But now that she’s made the deduction, you doubt she’ll let it go. 

You sigh, tucking your legs beneath you criss-cross applesauce style and turning to face her. 

(You learned that term ‘criss-cross applesauce’ while undercover as an American high-schooler in the state of Maine. It was… three years ago? Four?) 

“Looking inside my head will only ever bring you unpleasantness and pain,” you tell her. It’s almost hurtful for you to note that not a single word of it is a lie. 

“It’s not always a conscious thing,” she murmurs. It almost sounds like an apology. “Even when I’m not searching for it, I’ll walk into a room and just… feel what the people around me are feeling.”

“Do you feel it as if it’s happening to you?”

“Not quite,” she says with a slight shake of her head. “Though if I focus hard enough, I can. Most of the time, it’s more like… scrolling through radio channels.”

“Well. You should tune mine out, then.”

You aren’t saying it to be mean, but the crestfallen look that flits across Wanda’s features is more than enough to have you backpedaling.

“I just mean it in the way that… I don’t want you to feel what I’m feeling. It…” you trail off, hesitating. “It _hurts_.” Well, look at that. Aren’t you just Captain Honesty today?

“You saved me,” she offers softly, pain in her gaze. You can’t tell if it’s from your tactlessness, or the memory of her late brother, or both. 

“Ah, that old chestnut…” You force out a chuckle. “I don’t think it qualifies as ‘saving’ if I was the one sent to kill you in the first place.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I thought about it,” you tell her bluntly. “I surveilled you for days. I had you and your brother each in the crosshairs on multiple different occasions.”

“But you didn’t pull the trigger.”

_Stubborn_. “I think you might be missing the point here.”

“I don’t think I am,” she counters without a beat of hesitance, something like righteous indignation saturating her tone. “Letting us live meant consequences for you. Serious ones.”

You shrug it off with a dismissive wave. “By that time, the chair and I were well-acquainted. It was like visiting an old friend.”

“Don’t lie to me,” she says. It’s different from how Natalia says it. With Natalia, it’s more a command than anything else. A warning, even. With Wanda, it’s a plea. “I _felt_ that memory… the way your stomach dropped when the clock chimed 2:00. You were _terrified_ to go back there.”

You swallow down bile. “Fear is a part of life, Wanda.”

“It shouldn’t have to be,” she argues. “Not like that.”

“I choose to believe it made me braver.”

Wanda arches a brow. “Silver lining?”

You almost smile. Almost. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

Wanda falls silent, then. Eventually, she says, “I never said ‘Thank you.’”

You give her an odd look. “‘Thank you’?”

“For saving me and Pietro that day.”

You huff out a laugh, like it’s funny. It’s not. “Don’t thank me for that.”

Wanda shrugs, a playful twinkle in her eye. “Free country, no? At least, that is what they tell me.” You roll your eyes at that, and she giggles. “So… Thank you.”

You eye her for a long moment, caught somewhere between exasperated and amused. “I’m not going to win on this one, am I?”

Wanda breaks into a broad grin that reminds you of breaking dawn on the isle of O’ahu—warm, gentle, beautiful. “Nope.”

— —

Natalia returns with Soldat, who gives you a sharp nod the moment he steps off the elevator.

You don’t return it.

James “Bucky” Buchanan Barnes. Codename: Winter Soldier.

Designation: Unclear. Enemy (?). Threat Assessment: Deadly. 

Your brain is still… scrambled. 

He seems to understand (or at least take it in stride), though the concerned look Natalia sends your way is less reassuring. 

The food arrives moments later in large rectangular pans. It smells like fried food, grease, and… Orange Chicken? 

A sliver of memory in your mind’s eye. 

Dinner in Hong Kong. 

Your cover: A conceited, self-obsessed, American college student. Jenna Abrams. Adopted. Brought up by nice, white parents. Taking a semester abroad in Hong Kong as part of an effort to get in touch with her “ethnic roots,” or… something.

Quote-unquote “authentic” Orange Chicken at a family-owned joint a handful of kilometers from Victoria Peak. It wasn’t even on the menu, but the chef laughed and called it his ‘American Special,’ served it up free of charge. Your Cantonese wasn’t great, but you pieced together enough to understand that Orange Chicken was not, in fact (and never had been), a traditional Chinese dish. 

The smell is vaguely similar, though Panda Express has nothing on Sūn Chúshī’s cooking. 

You shake your head to clear the foggy recollection. You can examine it later in greater detail.

Another man comes up to join the five of you in the lab. Broad-shouldered, blonde… jacked as hell. 

He’s not in uniform, just a white T-shirt and khaki pants, but there’s no mistaking that distinctive all-American profile. Steve Rogers surveys the room with a serene blue-eyed stare, the ghost of a grin on his lips… until he lands on you. 

_Shit_. 

His shoulders tense as if bracing for a fight, gaze narrowing upon you. “Who’s this?” he asks no one in particular. 

Natalia saunters right up to him, pats him on the chest. “All good, Cap,” She has all the confidence in the world for someone who’s about one-third of Rogers’ size. “This is Y/N, and we’re keeping her.”

“Essentially, Tasha as a teenager,” Stark pipes up, then playfully mouths _‘Nightmare’_ across the room without a hint of subtlety.

“Keeping her?” Rogers’ expression softens as he looks from Natalia to you and back again. “Is that so?”

“For the record, I told her not to,” you say. It comes out as more of a mumble than anything else. 

Natalia snorts. 

Rogers raises his brows, turning his attention fully upon you. “Did you and Nat know each other before this?”

Slowly, you nod. Every modicum of your being is screaming for you to cut and run as his cool blue gaze holds yours. There’s just something about him… Did you meet him before?

“Buck, too?”

Soldat winces. “Stevie…”

_Stevie_ … 

Another sliver of memory. Nazis… New Jersey… Brooklyn. Steve Rogers. 90-something pounds, asthmatic. Enlistment papers… 

“Yes, I met Soldat,” you tell him. “He hated New Jersey. Later, he…” You pause, trying to make sense of your scrambled thoughts. “He told me a story about his best friend, a scrawny kid who hated bullies. Always getting himself beat up in alleyways. He… wanted to enlist. Lied on his papers… said he was from New Jersey.” Bewilderment splays itself clearly across Rogers’ clean-cut features, and the way he’s looking at you… utterly gobsmacked, like you just stole his precious shield. “Soldat said that just made him hate New Jersey all the more.”

Soldat stares, lips parted in awe. Rogers wears an identical dumbstruck expression beside him, while Natalia is… studying you, again, like you’re a broken puzzle and she’s keen to fix it. Fix _you_. 

For a long minute, no one—not even Stark—speaks. 

“I… am sorry,” you say eventually. Your head throbs; it feels like someone took a battering ram to your skull. “I didn’t… I didn’t remember that until now. I…”

_Fuck_. Does that mean you and Soldat were… friends?

You can’t look at him right now, much less Natalia or Rogers. 

It’s a relief when Stark finally speaks up, but you don’t have it within you to find the irony in it. 

“Alright, I hate to be that guy,” he interjects in a blasé tone that suggests he very much does not hate to be ‘that guy.’ “But can we figure out the complete action-packed origin story of our amnesiac Black Widow Jr. at a later time? The food’s getting cold.”

Just like that, the tension in the room goes from stifling to bearable, and the knot in your chest loosens… somewhat. 

Soldat rolls his eyes, Natalia snorts, and Rogers presses his lips together in a transparent effort to ward off a grin. 

“I get first dibs, obviously, ‘cause I’m me,” Stark continues blathering on, already peeking under the aluminum wraps of each dish. “I’ll make sure to save some Beef Broccoli for you, Capsicle, along with Terminator over there. Old men need their fiber.”

“You’re hilarious,” Rogers deadpans. 

Soldat scoffs but shakes his head with a good-natured grin. “Much obliged.”

“Oh! And Wanda gets first go at the Honey Walnut Shrimp. It’s her favorite.”

Wanda flushes pink but flashes Stark a shy smile. “Thank you.”

“Chop-chop! What are we all standing around for? Let’s eat!”

— —

After Stark’s self-proclaimed family dinner, Natalia joins you in the elevator.

Her voice is soft as she asks F.R.I.D.A.Y. to take the both of you to her floor. 

Once there, she’s quick to say, “Privacy Mode, F.R.I.D.A.Y. Though, please alert me if Tony is still awake by 4:00am.”

“Of course, Natasha.”

Then she traipses over to the sofa, settles herself comfortably on one end.

“Join me?” she asks, gesturing to the other.

You do. 

It’s quiet, for a bit. 

Eventually, you decide to bite the bullet.

“I didn’t mean to ambush Soldat and his friend like that,” you tell her. “I’m sorry.”

Apologizing is… new to you. You hope you’re doing it right. 

Natalia waves it off. “No apologies necessary,” she assures you, leveling you with an unreadable look. “I should’ve briefed him about you before he came up. That’s on me.”

“He was with you for the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” you say. It’s not really a question. 

Natalia nods, raising a brow. “Let me guess… You were in the neighborhood for all of that, too?”

You roll your eyes. “Some of it, yes,” you admit. “I remember being… surprised that it was Soldat who shot down Nicholas Fury. I couldn’t understand why.” You tuck your knees up to your chest, suddenly feeling rather small. “I thought I hated him,” you mumble. 

“But now you don’t?”

You frown. “I… don’t know.” 

All of a sudden, an errant thought seems to squeeze the very breath from your lungs— _Is Soldat safe?_

“Does Soldat live here?”

Natalia nods, watching you carefully like she can sense your disquiet. “For now, yes.”

“So he’s safe?”

Natalia’s expression instantly softens. “Yes, Y/N. He’s safe. If anything were to happen to him, F.R.I.D.A.Y. would inform us.”

“But what about Privacy Mode?”

“Emergencies such as a team member in danger would warrant an automatic override on all privacy features. We’d get the alert instantly, just like Tony and everyone else in the Tower.”

The tight feeling in your chest subsides… somewhat. “Okay.”

“You’re worried about him,” Natalia observes.

Slowly, you hazard a nod. You hate being so transparent. “I don’t know why. I _hated_ him for what he did to you.”

“And now you don’t?”

“No.” You stare out into nothing, force yourself to relax. You can talk to Natalia about this. There’s no chair… no Madame. “I’m still angry. It’s just… there’s _more_ now.”

“More?”

“Before, I was angry with him because he… He _shot_ you.” A flood of snapshots running through your head… that time he smiled, and— “But now, I’m remembering that he… He was warm. He found me… I was freezing. There was so much snow. I… I couldn’t feel my hands. I was going to die alone in the cold, and he _found_ me.”

And just like that, the dam in your chest bursts.

Memories pour through you like water through a sieve—an endless flow of tiny little droplets and nowhere to catch them. You’re tripping over yourself, scrambling and _desperate_ to name them as they come, say every detail aloud… lest you forget all over again. 

“Days later, he made soup. It was horrible. I told him so. He didn’t get offended. He… He just _smiled_ and shook his head, muttering something under his breath. It was… the first time I ever saw him smile. I said, ‘Wow, Soldat. I didn’t know you could do that.’ He… ” Hot teardrops fall onto your hands, and you realize that you’re crying. 

You lose your train of thought. What were you talking about? Snow? 

Soldat. 

“When you left, Soldat… he… trained me. Handled some of my missions. They had to keep sending him back for re-programming, because he often killed the old men who slept with me. I… I told him to back off, that it was for the mission, but he always said that I was too young for those men to be touching me… that it wasn’t right.”

“He never, ever touched me like those old men. It confused me. In Hafnarfjordur, I asked him if he was a homosexual.” Natalia barks out a startled laugh at that, but her eyes are shiny… glistening with unshed tears. “He just stared at me, but he looked a little sad, too, and said that he wasn’t. I asked him why he looked sad, and he told me that I’d asked him that before. Twice that he could remember.”

“I told him… the chair made things fuzzy. He was so angry when I told him that, he snapped his gun in half. I asked him what was wrong, and he said I was too young for the chair. That annoyed me. I… I thought he was just being patronizing. I told him that even Karpov thought I was old enough and strong enough for the chair.” You huff out a sigh, shaking your head at the remembrance of your own immaturity. “He spent the remainder of the week fuming silently from afar.”

You inhale shakily, feel more tears fall. Your chest aches. 

“After that, we returned to Russia. He was still so angry. He… he attacked Karpov. I begged him not to. I… I called him James. I didn’t mean to let it slip, I-I don’t even know where it _came_ from, or how I even knew that that was his name…” You rub the tears from your cheeks with trembling fists. “They made me watch as they put him in a big metal tube.... froze him. After that… I don’t remember. I think I went to the chair. I didn’t…. I don’t think I saw him again for a very long time.”

You shut your eyes and it feels like surrender, fresh tears streaming down your cheeks. “ _Fuck_ ,” you curse under your breath.

Your chest heaves; you can’t stop trembling. 

Natalia doesn’t say anything, doesn’t try to hug you or offer up meaningless platitudes. You’re glad for that. 

You need… You need to breathe. In, out. In, out. Calm. Measured. Poised. 

In… Out.

Natalia doesn’t speak, and neither do you. 

The only sounds are the hum of the air conditioning and your heaving breaths as you work to get yourself under control. 

The tears are still warm and wet on your cheeks when you manage to ask, “Why is he important, Natalia?” You sniffle audibly, and it’s just a testament to how far gone you are that you don’t even have the presence of mind to be embarrassed about it. “I don’t understand.”

“I don’t know,” Natalia answers gently. “But we’ll figure it out. Together.”

You eye her for a long moment through blurry, tear-stained vision. 

She doesn’t waver, just calmly holds your gaze—a lone anchor in a sea of tumultuous rage and mismatched memories. 

It breaks you. _She_ breaks you. 

You lunge for it—for _her_ , latching onto her and burying your face in her neck, still crying like a fucking kid. She doesn’t flinch away, doesn’t freeze… Just catches you, wraps her arms around you and pulls you oh-so-close like she’s been waiting for you all this time.

Your tears wet her skin, and you can’t say sorry. You can’t say anything. All you can do is grip her tighter and breathe, breathe, _breathe_... let _her_ be the strong one this time, holding you together even as everything else falls apart. 

“ _I’m glad I found you, Natalia_ ,” you sob into her neck. Your Russian is even more stilted than usual—choked with tears. 

You think you feel her place a kiss atop your head, then. It just makes you sob that much harder. “ _I’m glad you found me, too, little one_.”

— —

Later that night, you’re sitting on the floor of your room. It’s a quarter past midnight, Natalia’s working in the kitchen, and the floor is… quiet.

No one breathing on either side of you. No whispers. No handcuffs.

No more tears, either. You think you’ve cried enough to last you a lifetime. 

Moonlight streams through the window above, shedding light upon the open notebook in your lap. 

You haven’t written a single thing. 

It’s just… It’s all so jumbled in your head. You don’t even know where to start.

You sit there for another ten minutes trying to make sense of your scrambled thoughts, silently willing yourself to just write something… _anything_. 

Another ten minutes pass, and your pen hits the paper. 

You don’t write about Natalia, or Madame, or the dancers of the Bolshoi. 

You don’t write about Soldat, or Karpov, or a scrawny asthmatic kid named Stevie. 

You write instead about eyes like the ocean, silver rings, chipped black polish. Long chestnut-brown hair, a smile like breaking dawn on the isle of O’ahu. A boy and a girl… brother and sister. One blue, one red. 

The assassin who let them live. 

You write for hours until your eyes sting, your hand aches, and you’ve smeared black ink all over your hands. And then you write some more. 

You barely take notice of the sky turning from deep blue to indigo overhead, a molten sun peeking out over the cityscape horizon. 

You have one last thought as you sketch the curve of Wanda’s jaw, the delicate slope of her pert nose, the way her lashes fall _just so_ upon unblemished cheeks— _Is this how it feels to be a child?_

— —

**Author's Note:**

> i used chinese for sūn chúshī ( 孙厨师 ) even though it wouldn’t be pronounced the same way since hong kongers speak cantonese, but cantonese jyutping is confusing as fuck okay
> 
> sūn = 孙 = a fairly common last name in china  
> chúshī = 厨师 = chef / cook
> 
> also i kinda left it open-ended-ish because i don’t know if this is something i wanna come back to in the future...
> 
> i'll be super honest: i'm still on the fence about how this turned out... so definitely would love to know what y'all thought <3
> 
> oh and you can find the tumblr i made for writing stuff only (but primarily reader-insert for now and questions about ongoing stories) @novoaa1writes ([link](https://novoaa1writes.tumblr.com/))


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